Keeping track of appointments, promotions and other people news
The Securities and Exchange Commission now has a full set of commissioners for the first time since 2015. On Dec. 21, the Senate confirmed the nominations of Hester Pierce, a Republican, and Robert Jackson, a Democrat, to fill the two vacant seats at the top of the agency. Peirce is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and the director of the center's financial markets working group. Before joining Mercatus, she served on the staff of the Senate Banking Committee under Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and worked at the SEC for eight years, including a stint as counsel to Commissioner Paul Atkins. Jackson is a professor at the Columbia University Law School and director of the school's program on corporate law and policy. In 2014 he co-authored a study showing that the SEC's data on company filings was being made available to professional traders faster than the general public. Before joining Columbia in 2010, he served as a senior policy adviser on executive compensation at the Treasury Department. In related news, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton named Brett Redfearn as director of the agency's division of trading and markets, which oversees broker-dealers, exchanges and alternative trading systems. Redfearn joined the SEC from J.P. Morgan, where he was global head of market structure for the corporate and investment bank.
The Financial Stability Board appointed Dietrich Domanski as secretary general, starting in January. He previously was deputy head of the monetary and economic department and head of economic analysis at the Bank for International Settlements. He replaced Svein Andresen, who served in this role for nearly two decades.
The Australian government appointed James Shipton as chairman of the Australia Securities and Investments Commission. Shipton replaced Greg Medcraft, who stepped down in November after more than six years as the head of ASIC. Shipton was previously an executive director at Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission and before that worked at Goldman Sachs as head of government and regulatory affairs for Asia Pacific. Most recently he was executive director of Harvard Law School's Program on International Financial Systems.
Xavier Rolet, who has served as chief executive of LSE for almost a decade, resigned in November, several months ahead of schedule, after a contentious meeting of the LSE board and its shareholders. David Warren, who has served as LSE's chief financial officer since July 2012, will act as CEO on an interim basis while LSE seeks Rolet's replacement.
Deutsche Börse appointed Theodor Weimer, a banking industry executive with a background in investment banking, to replace Carsten Kengeter as chief executive officer. Weimer joined the exchange from Unicredit Group, where he was a member of the executive management committee and head of the Italian bank’s German subsidiary. He worked at Goldman Sachs from 2001 to 2007, and joined Unicredit in 2007 as head of global investment banking. The exchange also extended the management contracts of two senior executives, Andreas Preuss and Jeffrey Tessler, by one year. Preuss is deputy CEO and responsible for IT, operations, the data business and the subsidiaries EEX and 360T. Tessler is responsible for clients, products and core markets, and leads Eurex and Clearstream.
LCH Group promoted Dan Maguire to chief executive officer. He replaced Suneel Bakhshi, who stepped down after four years in the role. Maguire, who has worked at LCH for 16 years, was appointed group chief operating officer in April and before that was global head of SwapClear. LCH promoted John Horkan to replace Maguire as group chief operating officer in addition to his current responsibilities as head of North America. LCH hired Susi de Verdelon as chief operating officer for global rates, filling Horkan's previous position. She previously worked at Goldman Sachs, where she was global chief operating officer for sales and structuring strats. Earlier in her career she worked in the firm's interest rate sales group, with a focus on client clearing and clearinghouse strategy.
Kim Taylor retired from CME Group at year-end after almost three decades at the exchange. Over the years she has held a number of senior roles, including head of CME's clearinghouse for 10 years. During that time she played a leading role in the clearinghouses's response to several major events, including the failures of Refco, Lehman Brothers and MF Global. Since 2016 she has been president of clearing and post-trade services, responsible for the clearinghouse, post-trade and digitization businesses. In other changes at CME, Chris Fix, the exchange's head of Asia-Pacific, replaced Bryan Durkin as CME's representative on the boards of Bursa Malaysia Derivatives and its clearinghouse. CME owns 25% of the Malaysian exchange.
Singapore Exchange opened a new representative office in Chicago. It will be staffed by Serene Cai Xin Chun, who moved to Chicago from Singapore where she was the exchange’s head of North Asia equities and derivatives, and Laurent Partouche, who previously worked at Eurex in Chicago as a vice president, buy side business development for equity derivatives. Both will report to Alex Lenhart, the exchange’s chief representative in London.
Intercontinental Exchange announced several changes among its top executives. Charles Vice has been named vice chairman, with responsibility for ICE’s global technology, information security and operations. He was previously president and chief operating officer. Benjamin Jackson (pictured), formerly ICE’s chief commercial officer, has been named president. He will coordinate ICE’s global futures and OTC trading businesses and lead the integration planning and execution of ICE’s acquisitions and joint ventures. Mark Wassersug, previously ICE’s SVP of operations, has been named chief operating officer, where he will continue to lead operations, including IT infrastructure, data networks, data centers and engineering.
In a separate move, ICE Clear Europe appointed Boudewijn Duinstra, formerly chief risk officer at ABN Amro Clearing, as head of risk management.
ICE also announced that former CFTC Commissioner Sharon Bowen has been elected to its board of directors. She will fill a newly created seat on the board. Bowen served as a CFTC commissioner from 2014 to 2017 and as the sponsor of the CFTC's Market Risk Advisory Committee. Before that she was vice chairman of the Securities Investor Protection Commission, the organization that protects U.S. brokerage customers from loss of cash or securities.
CQG announced that Rod Giffen, the company's president, has relocated to China and will serve in the newly created position of president for the Asia-Pacific region. Tim Mather, the company's chief executive officer, said Giffen's move is part of an effort to add China to the company's global network. Ryan Moroney, who worked at the firm from 2003 to 2014 and then moved to S&P Capital IQ, returned to CQG as president for Europe and the Americas.
Quantitative Brokers appointed Ralf Roth as chief executive officer and named Thomas Ascher as executive chairman. Roth joined the company from IHS Markit, where he was chief technology officer for the equities division. He took over from Christian Hauff, the firm’s co-founder, who will continue as a member of the board and executive committee and will oversee the firm’s client and industry relationships. Ascher, who joined the firm's board in September, brings more than 30 years of experience in financial technology and exchange strategy, including 11 years as chief strategy officer at the International Securities Exchange.
R.J. O’Brien & Associates appointed Brad Giemza as managing director and chief risk officer, with responsibility for overseeing all risk activities and chairing the corporate risk committee. He has nearly two decades of experience in financial services risk, clearing and technology management. He joined the firm from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) Americas, Union Bank, serving most recently as managing director, head of investment banking and capital markets IT. Before that he spent seven years at Newedge Group in several roles, including global head of risk IT.
Chris Rodriguez left Eris Exchange and joined Symphony, the messaging platform that was launched in 2014 with financial support from 15 major financial institutions. He was named global head of workflow, reporting to Derek Diperna, global head of sales. Rodriguez worked at Eris for six years, most recently as chief marketing and relationship management officer.
PanXchange, an electronic platform for trading physical commodities, announced that Matt Jansen, the former head of Cofco International and former chief risk officer at Archer Daniels Midland, joined the company's advisory board and investor pool. The company also hired David Bradley as chief technical officer. He previously worked in IT roles at Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Morgan Stanley.
